The need to stop the war in Ukraine and to continue joint efforts to support the refugees was stressed by the President of the House of Representatives Annita Demetriou, who visited refugees hosted in the region together with women presidents of EU parliaments on Wednesday 20 April.
As Demetriou said, “in these moments there is no room for many words, we spoke with these people, with these children, mostly women and children are here in this refugee reception centre. Poland deserves warm congratulations for the structures it has created to be able to accommodate these people.”
“Everyone’s wish is the same, that they return to their homes, that they are reunited with their families. Many children are here unaccompanied or with only one relative, women without their husbands, parents, friends, and they just want to return to their country in safety”, the Speaker stressed, adding that the responsibility of the parliaments is great “so that we can not only support them, but to guide things with political decisions in the right direction, to stop this atrocity and support these people”.
“I never thought that in 2022 we would be experiencing such scenes, the numbers here in Poland are huge, we are talking about almost 3 million refugees who are hosted in Poland alone and of course they are spreading all over the world without knowing when it will stop, how long it will last and in what conditions they will return to their homes, if they are able to do so,” she said.
Demetriou also said that “reason and peace must prevail, war must stop and some people must realize that they cannot use the power of weapons, these kinds of atrocities to exploit people,” while calling on Russia to stop the invasion, as well as those who are trying to exploit these people: “Various incidents have been said to be happening, either regarding human trafficking or even child trafficking. All of this is very worrying for us. The Vice-President of the European Parliament is here with us, there will be protection mechanisms in place so that all these people can be protected and we will certainly do our bit in this direction.”
Finally, the President of the House said that “we need to support these people and above all not to lose this common effort, this common complex in which we are all moving together against this great atrocity”.
Source: Cyprus News Agency